Tracing Kenya's Artefacts abroad

In this episode of The Kenyanist, we aim to broaden and deepen our understanding of the lost Kenyan artefacts, by talking to the incredible Jim Chuchu, a Kenyan artist who has been in the lead of efforts to identify and document Kenya’s cultural items that are held outside Kenya. Jim has been part of the International Inventories Programme (IIP), an international research and database project that investigates Kenyan artefacts that are held in museums outside Kenya.

In recent years, there have been growing calls by African governments, cultural analysts and activists and their allies for the return of African artefacts in Museums abroad, especially in Europe. 

The presence of these artefacts in these countries is a direct legacy of colonialism. In many cases, these items were stolen by the colonisers. Now Africans are calling to have their items back. 

For a while, the conversation has been dominated by calls for the return of Benin Bronzes to Nigeria. The Benin Bronzes are a group of several thousand metal plaques and sculptures that decorated the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin, in what is now Edo State, Nigeria. The Benin artworks were forcibly removed in 1897, in a large-scale British military expedition. British forces attacked and occupied the city of Benin, in what is now modern-day Nigeria. The campaign is bearing fruit as we have seen some UK museums signing over their collections of these items to Nigeria. 

However, this conversation is broader than that. Most importantly, for our purposes here, there is a Kenyan conversation as well. Our colonisers also looted many Kenyan cultural items. For instance, there have been some claims of items belonging to the Maasai that are currently held at the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. 

Yet, many of us Kenyans are unaware of these conversations, how much of our cultural items are scattered around the world, and who is claiming ownership of them. 

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